Our Amish Trip

Well we had a good time in Pennsylvania last week. We stayed in Hershey Pa, and I will say more about that on another post. I did want to talk about our visit to the Amish country. We ended up visiting on 2 separate days and that really worked out well. The first day we drove into Lancaster and went to a Mennonite information center where we could hire a guide to ride with us and give us a personal tour of the area for $44 for just my family. I thought that was money well spent. We scheduled and paid for the guide and found out that it would me a Mennonite woman. While we waited we went downstairs and watched a video that basically outlined the differences and similarities between the Amish and the Mennonites. What we found out was that they come from the same groups that came out of Switzerland years ago and settled in this area. So their beliefs are pretty much the same. The big difference would be that the Amish decided to pull back from society and live the life without being connected to the world. The Mennonites decided to go out into the world. They drive in cars, have electricity, phones and get a higher than 8th grade education and work in jobs like us. She told us to look for homes with clothes on the line and green rollup shades. There were some big farms, where whole families lived. Marriages would occur in November. Kids went to one room schools. And there were plenty of them. There were outhouses at the schools and of course no electricity. We got a look at one of the farms where there was a store where they would bring their quilts and other things they would make and sell it. For those who would like to know, the cheapest quilt I saw was $650. The lights were propane powered. A pipe run through and a couple of mantles, like you would find in a propane lantern would be hanging ready to be lit. I saw a fan that was powered with compressed air. The mules they used were the biggest I had ever seen. And I have been around a few. They were allowed to have a tractor for major heavy work close by the house and they could not have inflated tires. Just hard wheels. The mules were used to plow and other things in the field. Horses were used to pull their buggies. The horses were used race horses. The buggies started around $7000. The mowers were the push mowers that have the blade that move when you pushed it.

The next day we went into the town of Intercourse and we went to a pretzel factory before heading back out of town to take a buggy ride tour. This time we got a young man that was maybe 18 or 19, at least I thought so, with a ear ring. He was really nice. As we got down the road a ways, he asked if we thought he was Amish. We all said no. He asked why. Well it was obvious, he didn't look Amish. He didn't have the clothes. He had that thing in his ear. He didn't have the beard. Now here is where I was reminded of something I had forgotten. Only the married men wear beards. Why? It is better than a ring. You can slip that ring off and back on without anyone knowing. It don't work that way with the beard. So it is harder to get away with infidelity. It turns out he grew up Amish and at the age of 14 he decided he would not join the church. I think if I remember that by the age of 16 you had to decide to join or not. I may be wrong about the age. But by age of 16 his dad had asked him to leave because of the way he was living. He moved out and got his high school education and was planning to go to vet school. He says they are on good terms now. He plans on getting his education and coming back to take care of their animals. Here is an interesting thing. If he had joined the church and left, he would be ostracized. But since he didn't join the church he would be accepted. But if he decides to join the church later, he could not work as a vet. He would have to set aside his schooling he got. Because it is from the world. From the world.... They do not have any wires connected to their homes because that would make them directly connect to the world. No wires coming in from the world. So this means they could have lights run off a generator or other source, from their farm. We did see some solar panels. We saw a few little houses, about the size of a large outhouse just outside their homes with a wire coming into it. It was where their phone was. Notice it didn't come into their house. We even saw some using the phone. Something we found out from this young man was that many have cell phones now. Note, no lines are used to get the signal into the house. They are a close knit community and help each other. They will hold church at each others homes, I think every other Sunday. So you may host it once a year or so. The preaching is done in English, but the bible reading is done in a high German dialect. And apparently this is a third language they learn the year after the 8th grade. They are exempt from the mandate of having to purchase health insurance under the new health care bill. They do have a particular problem that is a genetic problem from marrying people in such a close community. You are marrying your cousins basically and outside genes are not coming in. So they have some unique problems there. All in all it looked like a life without the things of the world being right in front of you all the time. It is a slower paced life, but a more physically demanding work than many of us have gotten accustomed to. But their lifestyle is to separate themselves from the world and things that separate them from God. I think it would be good for us all to find things that are distracting us from God and get rid of them. God bless.